SPEECH BY ELIHU ROOT, AS CHAIRMAN 
OF REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION AT 
SARATOGA, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 14th, 1908. 



SPEECH BY ELIHU ROOT, AS CHAIRMAN OF 
REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION AT SAR- 
ATOGA, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 14th, 1908. 



Utica, N. Y. 
Thomas J. Griffiths, Hotel and Liberty Sts. 



£760 



By Transfer 
AUG 3 1914 



i' 



Gentlemen of the Convention: 

Just a decade has passed since we were assembled in 
this place engaged in the business of nominating 
Theodore Roosevelt for Governor of New York. W'c 
are now to nominate a successor to Charles E. Hugirjs 
as Governor ; and we are to perform that duty accord- 
ing to our wisdom, our 103-alty to party and to country 
in such a way that the Empire State shall surely cast 
her electoral vote for the Republican candidate to 
succeed the same Theodore Roosevelt as President of 
the United States. 

May we not discern in the performance of that duty 
an opportunity broader in its scope, more compelling 
in its obligation than the mere attainment of local 
success? May we not do our work here in such a way 
and in such a spirit that throughout all the country. 
Republicans shall be inspired with courage and hope, 
and every doubtful voter shall be convinced by proof 
that in this great representative State, the home of the 
candidate for Vice President, Republicans are sincere 
in their professions, loyal to their principles, unselfish 
in their patriotism, truly representative of the body of 
the people and worthy of the great traditions of the 
party of Lincoln ? 

We have a record which forbids discouragement or 
doubt in the performance of our task. We can turn 
to the administrations, now drawing to a close, both 
in the State and in the nation, and with confidence ask 
every American voter to say whether they ha\-e not met 
all the great fundamental requisites of good govern- 
ment, whether they do not justify the belief that it is 



best for the counlry to kcc]) in ])o\ver the party which 
is responsible for them and is entitled to the credit 
of them. Have not these administrations within the 
State and in the nation been honest? Have they 
not been capable? Have they not been efficient? Have 
they not set before all the people of America examples 
of pure, high minded and patriotic service in public 
office? Have they not raised the standard of public 
dutv which the young men of America set for them- 
selves? Have they not done us honor before the 
world ? 

'i'hese are the true tests by which to determine 
whether it is wise to C(^ntinue a political party in power. 
It is such tests as these that we all apply in our pri\ate 
affairs when we select a business agent or a trustee or 
a lawver or a teacher for c^ur children. Common sense 
dictates their application in the selection of our agents 
and trustees for public business. All parties make 
promises before election agreeal)lc to the ear and satis- 
fving to the wishes of voters: but will they keep the 
Ijniniises? What is the evidence that they are made 
up of men who have the hmiesl will, tlie firmness of 
character and the abihlw wilhonl wliich such ]:)romises 
are wi Tthless ?' Lnok tn the rei'ord : see what parties 
ha\'C done in the i)asl, and learn tliere which slmuld be 
trusted for the future. Look not to petty, refmed 
details, but to the broad (|uestion whether, taken as a 
whole, their wisdom, etliciency and honesty in the past 
give promise of wisdom, efficienc)- and honesty in the 
fntni'e. Tlie answer to this ipiestion will be worth 
more as a guide to the voters at the coiTiing election 
than all the discussion ox'er fine spun theories and 
sanguine i-< injectni'es that can be I'rowded into a Presi- 
dential campaign. 



There liave been two special and notable characteris- 
tics in which these two administrations have been 
alike. One is that they have both gone directly to the 
people of the country, to the great body of the electors 
themselves, for their inspiration and their strength. 
Neither Governor nor President has relied upon that 
^■iew of expediency in the conduct of public affairs 
\\hich is to be gained by secret conferences in closed 
rooms. They have construed their representation of 
the people as being immediate and without intervening 
authority or interpreters. When they have formed 
opinions as to the lines of policy which it was wise to 
follow in the performance of their duties, they have 
explained their opinions directly, through the press and 
through public speeches, to the people who elected 
them. and. having got back the people's answer, they 
have given due weight and effect to it, in accordance 
with the true principles of representative government. 

The second special resemblance is in a much more 
than ordinarv vigor and sternness in the enforcement 
of law, which have characterized both State and 
National administrations. Does the Constitution of 
the State say that no gambling shall be allowed in the 
State? Then it seems to the State administration a 
compulsory and inevitable conclusion to be forthwith 
acted upon with all the power of the State, that such 
allowance must be stopped at all hazards, no matter 
who is hurt or who is offended. Do the laws of the 
United States declare that there shall be no discrimina- 
tion in railroad rates between shippers great or small ? 
Then discriminations and rebates must be stopped by 
the whole aggressive force of the National Govern- 
ment, whatever the cost, however great and powerful 
may be the offenders pursued, however injurious may 
be their enmity. The novelty of this strenuous law 



6. 



enforccnicnl has nut Cdiisisled in applxini;' any new 
lliciiries of g"i)\-t'rnnKMilal contml or in ilic cxercisj o! 
anv new powers, but rather in lireaking np the sleepy 
old methods of procedure, in securing practically ade- 
quate administrative statutes to give life to the old 
Constitutional and statutory declarations of general 
rules which were by themselves ineffective, and in 
])utting force and momentum into the attack on estab- 
lished and customary evils. 

W'licn continuous and widespread violations of law 
liave b.en profitable and many persons have a special 
])ecnniar\- interest against any interference with them, 
tliey i)resent a degree of resistance to law enforcement 
\vhicli can be overcome only l)y an awakened public 
interest, and In- a degree of apparent excitement wliich 
sometimes seems like luidue violence, for force nnist 
l)e proportioned to resistance. It is impossible to l)urst 
open doors softlw An incident to this kind of vigorous 
law enforcement is the resentment and revengeful 
feeling of the peo|)le whose profits are interfered with. 
Of this feeling, awakened by Repu1)lican law enforce- 
ment, tlie Democratic j^arty now gladly takes the 
benefit, and one of the serious (|uestic:)ns of this cam- 
paign is to be whether the ])eople of the country are 
going to permit the Republican j^arty to suffer for 
haxing enforced the law in the vState and the nation. 
or whether tliex' are g'»ing to liack up law enforcement 
b\- their approwd sliown in their \()tes for tlie l\.e]iul)- 
hcan candidates. 

In e\ery de])arlment of the National Cio\-ernment 
since the decisive approval of Republican administra- 
tif)n gixcn in the great majorities four years ago, there 
has been ])ractical effectiveness of action which should 
b^' highly satisfactory to all the ])eople of the countr}- 
who really care about ha\iiig the ( lox-ernment business 
well and creditabb' done. 



7. 

The financial panic of last autumn which resulted, 
as so many panics have before, from reckless extrava- 
gance and wild speculation, was checked by the firm 
hand and clear understanding of national financial 
administration. Confidence was restored. The panic 
has passed away, revealing a substantial business 
soundness and widely diffused wealth throughout the 
country, unprecedented in our history and the result of 
a long period of wise and able Republican administra- 
tion ; and the Republican Congress, against much 
Democratic opposition, has enacted a wise law to make 
such a panic as that impossible in the future. 

Our War Department has continued to be an agent 
for peace and for the spread of American ideals of 
ordered liberty. The Filipinos, already initiated by us 
in the practice of local self-government in their Barrios 
and Provinces, have now been taught the first step 
towards national self-government by the successful 
inauguration of the Philippine Legislative Assembly. 

Cuba has been pacified. Her armies, on the verge 
of bloodshed, have been induced to lay down their 
arms, and, under the intervening government and 
guidance of the United States, through perfectly 
peaceful and orderly elections, Cuba is about to embark 
in her second attempt at independent self-government. 

Under the medical officers of the army the Isthmus 
of Panama, where pestilence had ruled for centuries 
and workmen died like flies, has been made healthful 
and safe ; yellow fever has been banished, malaria has 
been reduced and the death rate among the thirty 
thousand employes engaged in the canal work has been 
reduced to the ordinary average level of our American 
cities. Under the engineer officers of the army the 
work of excavation and construction is progressing 
with a rapidity never before known upon any work in 



8. 



the world, and llic simple continuance of the present 
conditions will within the next seven years crown the 
work by the completion of the canal, to the imperishable 
honor of America as a benefactor of civilization. What 
will happen if the American people change the admin- 
istration with all the chances of incapacity, inexperience 
and doubtful experiment no one can forecast. 

The extraordinary voyage of our battle ship tleet. 
circumnavigating South America, to the extreme 
nortliern boundary of our western coast, across the 
wide Pacilic to far off New Zealand and Australia, 
and so along its way around the w'orld, has evoked 
much discussion as to both political and naval policy. 
In both of these the developments of the voyage have 
shown tliat the policy of the Administration was sound 
and far sighted. There i.s one other thing wdiich the 
voyage has shown beyond peradventure ; it is that there 
has been only sound and honest work under the Navy 
Department in construction, in equipment and in 
training. The unexam])]ed test to which this fleet has 
been subjected absolutely excludes any possibility of 
graft or slackness or false ])retence in naval adminis- 
tration. 

The Post Oflice Department has increased its receipts 
from $82,665,462.73 in 1897 to $183,585,005.57 in 
1907. It has increased the number of pieces handled 
from 5. 781. 002. 143 in 1897 to 12,255,666.367 in 1907. 
It has increased the Rural Free Delivery routes from 
83 in 1897 t^ 37728 in 1907. and 39,270 in 1908. 
ser\-ing sixteen million ])eop]e. while it has decreased 
the numbci- (if ])ost offices from 76,945 in 1901 I0 
62,659 in 1907. Tlie great increase in circulation of 
ncws])a])ers and magazines along the Rural l-'ree 
Deli\er\- routes, the bringing of u]) to d;ite information 
about niark-cts and im])ro\enients and current c\cnts to 



the farmer, the rehef to the isolation of farm Hfe, all 
testify to the wisdom of this beneficent Republican 
policy, which had its origin under President McKinley 
and its great development under President Roosevelt. 
The Post Office Department has effected a saving of 
nearly five millions a year by reform in the weighing 
of railway mails. It has almost completed the list of 
parcels-post conventions with the other nations of the 
world. It has given security of tenure to good post- 
masters, has reduced the hours of labor and has 
increased the promptness and efficiency of the ser\'ice. 
The Department of Justice has borne the burden of 
vast and complicated litigation necessary to the legal 
assault upon widespread and deeply intrenched abuses 
defeufled by wealth and influence and power in many 
fields. By investigations and suits and prosecutions it 
has substantially put an end to the almost universal 
practice of railroad rebates. It has halted and made it 
plain that if allowed to continue in the same way it will 
inevitably end the oppressive and unfair practices 
through which great combinations of capital have been 
acquiring monopolies and crushing weaker competitors. 
It has compelled the land thieves and timber thieves 
who had fastened themselves upon the great Govern- 
ment domains in the west to give up their plunder. By 
prosecutions under the penal clauses of the postal laws 
it has put an end to lotteries in the United States. It 
has conducted an effective campaign against the 
practice of peonage, a thin disguise under which slavery 
was again reappearing in certain regions of the south. 
Under the wise policy of recent Republican legislation 
it has asserted the value of American citizenship by 
scrutinizing for the first time in our history the pro- 
ceedings in the niultitude of courts which have power to 
grant naturalization, and by prosecuting the fraudulent 



lO. 

practices under which, unchecked, the hberahty of the 
United States towards the immigrant had so often been 
abused. By active proceedings it has given new hfe to 
tlie eight hour lal)or and contract hibor provisions of the 
I'ederal statutes. It has enforced the ordinary laws 
and conducted the ordinary legal business of the 
Government faithfully and effectively. 

In the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture a 
new era lias been inaugurated, of protection, preserva- 
tion and enlargement of the natural wealth of the 
United States. The reclamation of the arid lands of 
the west In- irrigation was provided for by the act of the 
I\ei)ublican Congress of the 17th of June, 1902, a fitting- 
supplement to that other great Republican measure, 
the homestead law. Under that act more than 
25,000,000 acres of desert lands are being rapidly con- 
verted into fruitful farms, without entailing the ulti- 
mate cost of a dollar to the national treasury. Twenty- 
five irrigation projects are under construction. On the 
I St of January last 1,881 miles of canals had been dug; 
281 great dams and other large structures for the 
storage and utilization of w-ater had l)cen l)uilt ; 
42,447,000 cubic yards of earth and rock had been 
excavated : thirteen and a half miles of tunnels had been 
dri\en, and alread\-. with ])ractically all of the projects 
still uncompleted, eight new towns have been estab- 
lished and over fourteen thousand of our people have 
made new homes on the reclaimed land. 

The forest policy of Rei)ul)lican administration under 
the Department of Agriculture h;is been far in advance 
of the general ])ul)lic .'ipi)reciation of its importance. 
Over 166,000.000 acres of public forest land have been 
placed under the administration of the forest service, 
and bv strict rmd well organized su])ervision are ]ire- 
ser\i'(l fi-oni spoliation and from fire as gi-cat reser\-oirs 



II. 



of water supply for the interests of navigatiiMi, irriga- 
tion, power and domestic use. The forests are not only 
preserved, but they are used for grazing- where they 
can be grazed without injury, and for cutting the ripe 
timber that can be cut without injury. The cost of 
supervision, protection and utilization has risen as the 
area set aside has ificreased, from $350,000 in 1904 to 
$1,790,678.79 in 1907, but the receipts from the sale 
of timber and grazing have risen from $58,436.19 in 
1904 to $1,571,059.44 in 1907, so that the service is 
already almost self supporting. Sixty-seven million 
acres of public lands underlaid by coal which under 
former practices would have been sold at a small mini- 
mum price, and, too often, had been taken up by 
fraudulent entries as agricultural lands for the benefit 
of some corporation or syndicate, have been withdrawn 
from entry. Fifty million acres of the lands thus with- 
drawn have been examined and valued by the Geo- 
logical Survey service and restored to public purchase 
as coal lands at a true and reasonable valuation. At 
fifteen hundred stations throughout the United States 
the. flow of streams has been gauged and a knowledge 
of their flood and low stages and average discharge has 
been obtained through the Geological Survey. These 
investigations have shown where millions of wasted 
horse power can be utilized, and at the same time 
destructive floods controlled and an equal flow' of water 
preserved for the uses of navigation in the east and 
irrigation in the west. 

The grazing lands of the ])ul)lic domain had been 
greatly encroached upon by the great cattle owners, 
and during the past five years fences unlawfully 
enclosing public lands have been removed from 
3,518,583 acres and action has been taken to remove 
such enclosures from an additional 3,763,186 acres. 



12. 



During the past eight years over a milHon dollars have 
been collected by the Departments of the Interior and 
of Justice in penalties for timber trespasses. For all 
sorts of offences aimed at the public domain during that 
period over three thousand indictments have been 
found ; over 870 convictions have been had and over 
250 prison sentences have been imposed. \\'^ithin the 
same period 7,874 fraudulent land entries have been 
cancelled, restoring to public entry over 2,259,840 
acres. Government initiative and Government activity 
in the conservation of our national resources have 
awakened the whole country to a sense of the wasteful- 
ness which has depleted our wealth in the past and the 
necessity of economy in the future. 

In the meantime the Department of Agriculture is 
increasing the value of every acre of land by scientific 
researches and experiments anrl practical instruclii^n 
which are teaching our people to make their land more 
productive and to combat the enemies of animal and 
])]ant life. Careful, well (Organized and systematic 
inspection and super\ision under the meat inspection 
law and the pure food law of 1906, have restored the 
credit (^f our meat i)ro(lucts and are protecting our 
people from fraudulent and adulterated foods. 

The De]')artment of Commerce and Lab(n" has. for 
the fu'st time, established immediate and ])ractical 
co-operation between the Government and the organ- 
ized commercial bodies of the country. It is sifting 
with greater efficiency than e\"er before, under the 
recent legislation of Congress, the crowds of immi- 
grants who come to our pc^rts. and excluding criminals. 
paupers, the diseased and contract laborers. It is 
bringing publicity into the workings of the great cor- 
porations. It is in\-estigating the conditions surround- 
ing woman and child labor in the United States. It is 



13- 

keeping the producers and merchants of the countr\- 
constantly fully informed as to the markets and trade 
conditions of the entire world. 

All of these Departments are performing with 
integrity and efficiency the vast mass of ordinary duties 
of government devolving upon them, those duties 
which are so inconspicuous and unnoticed, but so 
important for the welfare of the country. Search 
where you may : in no private business, corporate or 
indixidual. in this or any other country, can be found 
a higher standard of integrity, fidelity and competency 
than exists to-day in the Government of the United 
States in all its Departments. 

Our country has not lived unto itself alone. It is at 
peace with all the world, but it is not the peace of isola- 
tion. W^e have grown so great that we are touching 
elbows with the people of every other country. Our 
vast trade seeks every market; our millions of immi- 
grants maintain ties of citizenship or relationship with 
everv countrv : our travelers throng every foreign high- 
way \\> could not, if we would, escape from the 
responsibilities, the duties and the opportunities, of 
active membership in the community of nations. On 
that great international field we must play our part, 
whether we will or no. We must maintain and enlarge 
(Hu- trade ; we must protect our citizens, native and 
naturalized, in every right; we must establish and 
maintain a strength of potential defence which shall 
discourage predatory attacks that our wealth would 
otherwise in\-ite ; we must render justice to all countries 
and to their people, so that there shall be no just cause 
for assaults upon us; we must promote friendly inter- 
course and better knowledge between our people and 
all others, so that there shall be no quarrels born of 
misunderstanding. Beyond all this, we must do our part 



14. 

according to the measure of our wealth and power, to 
promote the peace of the world, to encourage and to 
aid the weak, the unfortunate and the undeveloped 
peoples of mankind along the pathway of civilization, 
and to spread throughout the world the ordered liherty 
and justice which has been our heritage. 

In these things we have not failed. In the second 
great Peace Conference at The Hague the American 
representatives bore their part of useful service with 
distinction, and contributed in full measure to the 
results of the Conference, which constitute one of the 
greatest advances ever made towards the reasonable 
and peaceable regulation of international conduct. 
Twel\-e treaties agreed upon at that Conference all 
designed to reduce the probability or mitigate the 
horrors of war have been approved by the Senate and 
ratified by the President. 

Following the Conference the United States has put 
itself definitely upon the basis of the peaceful settlement 
of international disputes by concluding general treaties 
of arbitration with England, France, Spain. Portugal, 
the Netherlands, Denmark. Sweden. Norway. Switzer- 
land. Italy. Mexico and Japan. All of these have been 
confirmed by the Senate, and many others are in course 
of negotiation. 

Threatened tariff wars l)etween the I'nitcd States 
and Germany and the United States and {""ranee have 
been averted by commercial agreements under the 
power conferred ui)i)n the President in the third section 
of the Dingley tariff act. 

The long unsettled questions with Canada have l)een 
carried far along the way towards a conclusion. Under 
one treaty already made a commission is disposing of 
the last remaining questions of doubt and dispute along 
our three thousand miles of boundary. Under another 



15- 

treaty a commission is framing joint international regu- 
lations for the preservation of the food supply in the 
great lakes and other boundary waters. Under a third 
treaty we have agreed upon the submission to The 
Hague Tribunal of the century old controversies 
relating to the Newfoundland fisheries, while pendmg 
this arbitration, from year to year, our fishermen are 
protected in their rights by a friendly uiodtis z'k'ciuii. 

In China the boycott against American goods caused 
bv Chinese exclusion has been abandoned, and China is 
herself giving valuable aid towards preventing the 
emigration of her coolies to America. Under authoritv 
of Congress we are about remitting all the punitive 
part of the indemnity stipulated for after the Boxer 
rebellion, and the Chinese Government is of its o^vn 
motion formulating a plan to apply the remitted part 
of the indemnity to the sending of Chinese students 
annually to be educated in the United States. 

All the wild outcries of the sensational press at home 
and abroad have failed to destroy the good understand- 
ing between the Governments of Japan and of the 
United States. The difficulties which arose in San 
Francisco have l^een disposed of. The two Govern- 
ments are actively co-operating with perfect mutual 
understanding for the prevention of Japanese labor 
immigration into the United States. Our treaty of 
arbitration ratified during the past summer was fol- 
lowed by a treaty for the mutual protection of trade 
marks, copyrights and patents in China. On the special 
invitation of Japan we are making preparations to 
participate on a scale which we have never before 
attempted, in her great international exposition which 
is to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of 
her Emperor ; and upon the special invitation of Japan 
our fleet is about to visit the harbor of Tokyo where it 



i6. 

will be received with a hospitality not marred by a 
single discordant note. 

(3iir course in the Pan-American Conference at Rio 
de Janeiro in 1906 and the friendly intercourse which 
has f(jllowed have dispelled the susi)icion and distrust 
with which we were once regarded by the people of 
Latin -America, and with the single exception of the 
irresponsible and abnormal Dictator of Venezuela, 
genuine friendship and good will bridge the gulf of 
race and language between ourselves and every people 
of the Western Hemisphere. 

Regarding the countries about the Caribbean sea, 
whose nearness to the Panama canal route makes their 
fortunes of special interest to us, we have developed 
and followed a definite course of policy which may be 
described by saying "We do not wish to take possession 
of any of those countries our selves ; we are not willing 
to have any other foreign nation take possession of 
them ; and to prevent the necessity of the one or the 
possibilty of the other, we do wish to help them govern 
themselves in peace and order and prosperity." 

That is the key to our treatment of Cuba. Under 
that policy we have made a treaty with San Domingo 
under which the presence of a single American ci\il 
officer, as Receiver of Customs, with the moral power 
of the United States behind him to demonstrate the 
hopelessness of an_\- attempt at revolution, has substi- 
tuted uninterrupted ])eace iov continuous turmoil and 
bloodshed, has more than doubled the Government 
rex'cnues, has brought about an adjustment of the debt 
and a restoration of solvency, ai d has established a 
revival of industry and of commerce, lender the same 
policy we have been collaborating with Mexico, once .an 
enemy and now a close and \alued friend, to mitigate 
the conditions of revolution and war atiiono- the Central 



17- 

American States; and a Peace Conference during the 
past winter, under the guidance of the two greater 
countries, has resulted in a series of treaties and the 
estabhshment of an International Central American 
Court for the settlement of differences — substantial ad- 
vances along the slow and difficult pathway to estab- 
lished order. 

In the meantime the reorganization of our consular 
service and the practice of promotion for merit in the 
diplomatic service has increased the efficiency and use- 
fulness of all our representatives abroad. We con- 
tributed substantially towards maintaining the peace of 
Europe in the Conference at Algeciras, and the greatest 
war of modern times was ended when Japan and Russia 
were brought together under the congenial infiuence of 
American conciliation in the treaty of Portsmouth. 



The prosperity and well being of our people as a 
whole corresponds to the efticiency of the Government, 
which justly represents them. Never anywhere in the 
long history of mankind's struggles for better condi- 
tions, has there been among so many millions of people 
so great a diffusion of wealth, such universal comfort 
of living, such ready rewards for industry and enter- 
prise, such unlimited opportunities for education and 
indi\-idual advancement and such independence and 
dignit}' of manhood as in our country now. 

\\'e are all familiar with the amazing statistics that 
mark our prosperity. Our foreign trade last year 
amounted to $3,315,272,503. The balance of trade in 
our favor last year was $446,429,653, and in the last 
four years it has amounted to $1,825,520,202. The 
value of our farm products last year was $3,958,000,- 
000. According to the last census there were 5,739,657 



1 8. 

separate farms, and the li\'e stock upon those farms is 
valued at $4,331,230,000. The value of our manufac- 
tured products in 1905 amounted to $16,866,703,985. 
Our bank deposits of all kinds last year amounted to 
$13,077,330,466. There were last year in the United 
States 8,588,811 savings bank depositors, with an 
aggregate deposit of $3,495,410,087. During the fiscal 
year ending June 30, 1906, there were instructed in the 
schools of the United States 18,434,847 scholars, and 
of these 210,333 ^vere students in universities, colleges, 
professional and technical schools. Chinxhes and hospi- 
tals and lil)raries abound. Associations for mutual aid 
and for ])ublic Ijenefit numl)er their metnbers and their 
revenues by millions. Our people are keenly alive to the 
public interest and competent for the discussion of public 
questions. Expression of opinion is free as the air we 
breathe. Respect for law is general; disregard of it is 
the rare exception. At no time and in no country has 
mere wealth secured for its ])ossessor less public con- 
sideration or ha\e the liigh qualities of personal man- 
hood availed so much for honor and opportunity. 

Government did not make these conditions, l)ut the)- 
would ha\e been impossible without wise and good 
government, and wise and good government is neces- 
sarv to their continuance. Let tis all put our shc^ulders 
to the wheel of reform. Let us press along in the ])ath 
of progress, constantly impro\ing conditions and 
lea\'ing no class or condition of men who do not share 
in the im])ro\emcnt ; but let us n(^t forget that true 
reform ])rocccds, not b\' o\crtnrning or destroying in 
order to subslitule tlie conjeclural future of sanguine 
thcor\', but al\\a\> b\- building steadil)' and surely on 
the safe foundations of all that is good in the present. 
Wisflnm. >ki!l, exi)erience in the operations of Covern- 
ment, practical ca]jacit\- couibini'd with hiinc>t purpose 



19. 

arc necessary to make true reform effective. Without 
these, declarations and jjuljhc speeches, however, elo- 
quent, and proposals, however attractive, are mere 
w^ords and will never he realized. The suhstantial 
question for the voters to answer in November is. how 
shall we secure a continuance of the good government 
under which we have attained to all our blessings: how 
select public agents who will maintain the peace and 
order and prosperity we now have; and at the same 
time press forward and make practically effective the 
reforms which this Republican Administration has 
inaugurated, and upon the \alue and beneficence of 
which all parties are agreed. 

Plainly the true successor to this • great dutv is 
Secretary Taft. His wide experience and long vears 
of successful service under heavy responsibilities as 
jurist, legislator, administrator, his intimate acquain- 
tance with the puljlic affairs of our country, internal 
and external, prove his wisdom, his skill, and his 
capacity. The confidence and sympathy and intimate 
association with which he has stood by and aided 
President Roosevelt in every stage of the policies which 
by the common consent of both parties now lie before 
us to be continued and developed in practical effective- 
ness, indicate him as the best possible man to continue 
those policies. The character that we know so w^ell, 
with its courage, firmness and energy, its unselfishness, 
modesty, frankness and honor assures us of his honest 
purpose and his eminent fitness for the greatest of 
offices. 

The Democratic party announces as the issue of this 
campaign upon w hich they ask the voters of the country 
to take the powers of administration and legislation 
away from the party that has thus proved its compe- 
tency, and to embark upon the experiment of Demo- 



20. 



cratic control — as "tlie oxershadow in<;- issue" the ques- 
tion "Shall the ])e()ple rule?" 

Do not the jieople rule? lliis is a representative 
g-overnment. It surely is not ])roposed to do away with 
representation and ha\'e eig"ht}--fi\e millions of people 
make and execute their laws directly, without the inter- 
vention of legislative and executive agents. Are not 
the laws heing made and executed by the agents whom 
the people have selected for that purpose? I find that 
by the Lawful returns of the last Presidential election 
Theodore Roosevelt received 2.541,296 more votes for 
the Presidency than Alton B. Parker. Has he not a 
good title to the office? -\re not the people ruling 
tin-ough him, their chosen Executive, so far as his part 
c)f the government is concerned? Has not every Con- 
gressional District been represented in Congress by the 
man whom a majority of its voters selected? Is not 
every State represented in the Senate by Senators 
chosen by its own Legislature, selected by the people of 
the State for the performance of that xevy duty ? 

But Mr. Bryan gives specifications. He says there 
are three reasons why the people do not rule. 

First, because there is corru])t use of money at elec- 
tions. Does he mean to say that the two millions and a 
half of votes which constittited Air. Roosevelt's ma- 
jority were bought ; that to such a frightful extent the 
American electorate is \enal ? Docs he ])roducc any 
e\'idence of such a charge? Xot the slightest. Docs he 
prf)duce any facts tending to sustain even a suspicion 
of tlic justice of such a charge? None whatever. For 
one. I deny its truth, and I assert that American elec- 
tions are fair and honest elections, and tliat the Govern- 
ment in W'ashingti »n lias been wielding tlic jiowers 
vested in it under the Constitution by the clear and 
unquestionable will of the people of the United States. 



21. 



Campaign funds were raised and used in the last elec- 
tion by both parties, as they ought to have been raised 
and used. Mr. Bryan's managers are appealing for 
contributions of campaign funds to-day. The universal 
and intelligent discussion of great questions of public 
policy by the American people during a Presidential 
campaign is the most useful and the most hope inspiring- 
school of government in the world. It is that which 
makes the people ever more competent to govern justly 
and wisely. No money expended to promote that great 
exercise of governing intelligence is ill-spent; and to 
furnish eighty-five million people with material for 
discussion, to reach them w-ith information and argu- 
ment and refutation of argument, and appeals, through 
public speech and through the mails and private can- 
vass, requires organization, the labor of thousands of 
men and the expenditure of great sums. The repetition 
of small expenses among a great multitude of people 
s])read over a vast territory mounts up with a rapidity 
difficult to realize. The postage on a single letter 
mailed to each of the fourteen million voters of the 
country amounts to $280,000. To such proper and 
useful purposes and to such purposes only was the 
Republican campaign fund of the last election devoted. 
The second reason wdiy Mr. Bryan says the people 
do not rule is that we have not direct election of Sena- 
tors, and he holds the Republican party responsible for 
not having procured an amendment to the Constitution 
of the United States to provide for that. There is no 
more necessity for an amendment to the Constitution 
providing for the direct election of Senators than there 
is for an amendment to the Constitution providing for 
the direct election of President. If the people of any 
State wish any particular man to be chosen as Senator, 
thev have only to instruct their Legislature, as the 



22. 



people of a considerable number of States make it their 
practice to do now, and no Legislature will ever for a 
moment think of disobeying the instructions any more 
than Presidential electors violate their obligations. The 
proposed amendment is simply to enable the people of 
each State to escape from the performance of the duty 
of electing a Legislature than can be trusted. Are we 
l)rei)ared to abandon the performance of that duty? 
Are we to assume that our State Legislatures must 
necessarily and for all time be unfit to represent the 
people of the State? If so. what becomes of the gov- 
ernment of the State? Is that with all its multitude of 
important duties to be left unfit? If any State Legis- 
lature cannot now Ije trusted, the true reform would 
seem to be in the direction of selecting the Legislature. 
Speaking for myself alone. I believe that the selection 
of Legislative candidates by direct primaries would be 
a material improvement, and would greatly increase the 
sense of immediate responsibility to their constituents 
on the part of the members of the State Legislatures. 
In such primaries the voters could instruct their can- 
didates if they saw fit and as they saw fit. regarding the 
selection of Senators. But that is a (|uestion the people 
of each State can settle for themselves without any 
amendment of the Constitution, and however they settle 
it, they rule in the way they prefer to rule. If any 
Legislature under tlie Constitution does not choose a 
Senator who i)roperl}' represents the people of the 
State, it is because the people of the State have failed 
in their dut\' in the selection of their Legislature. Let 
them perform their duty under the Constitution as it is, 
rather than clamor for an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion to enal)le them to esca])e that dutw In the long 
run, to secure good government we must ultimately 
come down to the faithful performance of dut}- by the 



23- 

people of tlic country at the polls, and no expedient or 
change of form will take the place of that performance. 
The third reason why the people do not rule, says 
Mr. Bryan, is to be found in the rules of the House of 
Representatives. The Denver Convention declared in 
its platform that it "observed with amazement the popu- 
lar branch of our Federal Government helpless to obtain 
either the consideration or enactment of measures 
desired by a majority of its members." Who makes 
the rules of the House of Representatives? Why, a 
majority of its members, and a majority can change 
them as it will. Manifestly, there must be rules to 
control the conduct of the business of the House, or no 
business could be done. Over thirty thousand bills 
were introduced in the last session of Congress, and 
there are 386 members. If one-tenth of the members 
had attempted to speak five minutes each on one-tenth 
of the bills that were introduced, working eight hours 
a day for the average legislative session and permitting 
the transaction of no other business, they would have 
been speaking still, and the term of office, of the entire 
Congress would expire l^efore one-fourth of the one- 
tenth could be heard. Plainly there must be rules to 
limit oratory, to provide for the selection of the 
measures which shall come up for discussion, and to 
provide for the transaction of the real business of legis- 
lation. All legislative bodies have to adopt such rules, 
and the larger the body the more necessary are the rules 
and the more stringent they have to be. It is an invari- 
able incident to the transaction of all legislative business 
that from time to time members who are not allowed to 
talk as long and as often as they please to the exclusion 
of others and who cannot ha\'e the measures they are 
particularly interested in acted upon in preference to 
other measures, rise up and cry out against the rules, 



24. 

as the Democrats are crying out against them now. 
The real trouble is that the Democrats in the House of 
Representatives are a minority and cannot have their 
own way because they are a minority. The real Demo- 
cratic grievance is, not that the majority does not rule, 
but that it does rule. The rules at present in force in 
the House of Representatives are those adopted under 
Speaker Reed when the Democratic members of the 
House had stopped all public business by refusing to 
answer to their names and insisting that unless they 
answered, although personally present, they could not 
be counted as making up a quorum. The amazement 
with which the Democratic party observes that those 
rules are still in force must be greatly increased by the 
knowledge of the fact that the same rules w'ere con- 
tinued and enforced by the Democratic House under 
the Democratic Speaker, Mr. Crisp, when they suc- 
ceeded to the Republican House over which Mr. Reed 
presided. 

Consideration of the paramount issue now proposed 
by the Democracy, "Shall the people rule?", forces the 
conclusion that the draftsmen of the Democratic plat- 
form are to be acquitted of the offence of insulting the 
intelligence of the American people by a piece of cheap 
buncombe, only because they have fallen into the con- 
fusion which beset the three tailors of Tooley Street, 
who began their proclamation "W^e the people of 
England," and that they think the peo])le do not rule 
because they do not themselves rule. 

The Democratic platform assails the Republican 
National Administration for the increase in tlie number 
of office holders and the great exi)enditures of the Ciov- 
ernmcnt, whicli the ])latl'orm characterizes as exlraxa- 
gant. Tt demands that the National Government shall 
do a great variety of things which can be done only 



as. 

through the employment of numerous agents and the 
expenditure of great sums of money, but it declares the 
employment of the agents and the expenditure of the 
money to be unjustifiable and extravagant. It gives 
specifically the number of office holders added and the 
number of million dollars expended, but is silent as to 
the work that has been accomplished. In the numbers 
so given by the Democratic platform are included the 
carriers who deliver the mails upon the thirty-nine 
thousand rural free delivery routes. Would the Demo- 
cratic party discharge them from office and stop the 
rural free delivery ? If not, is it honest for their plat- 
form to invite the condemnation of the people for the 
addition of these thirty-nine thousand letter carriers 
without disclosing what they were for? The increase 
of expense which they declare to be extravagant 
includes the cost of the Panama canal. Would they 
stop work on the canal ? If not, is it honest to include 
that cost in the figures of added expense which they 
call extravagance and not disclose the purpose for 
which the expense was added? The employment of 
agents and the expenditure of money made necessary 
in the prosecution of trusts, the regulation of railroads, 
the prevention of rebates, the restoration of public 
lands, the conservation of natural resources, the regu- 
lation of immigration and of naturalization, the im- 
provement of agriculture, the upbuilding of the navy, 
the extension of our foreign trade, all the vast activities 
of the National Government along the very lines that 
the Democratic party is insisting upon, are included in 
these figures which the Democratic platform charges as 
extravagance without one word to indicate what is the 
fact, that full and necessary service was rendered by 
every additional officer and full value received for every 
dollar. The expenditures of the present Republican 



26. 



Administration have been well within the means of the 
country, and there remains to it in the Treasury a 
surplus of revenues collected during this Administra- 
tion over and above the expenditures. Every additional 
office holder employed and every dollar of increase of 
expenditure have been authorized bv the direct repre- 
sentatives of the people of the I'nited States in Con- 
gress as being wise expenditure in the jniblic interest. 
Every dollar has been honestly expended in accordance 
with that authority, and in charging extravagance by a 
mere statement of the amount expended and the number 
of officers employed, without any reference to what was 
accomplished, the Democratic party must stand con- 
victed of an attempt to mislead the people of the United 
States by the mere force of large figures. 

The Democratic platform charges also that the action 
of the present Chief Executive in using the patronage 
of his high office to secure the nomination of Mr. Taft 
to the Presidency is "a violation of the spirit of our 
institutions." Is there a man of full age in the United 
States who does not know that the power which Mr. 
Roosevelt brought to the support of Mr. Taft's candi- 
dacy was not patronage but his extraordinary and phe- 
nomenal popularity and leadership among the masses of 
the people of the country, a popularity of which Mr. 
Bryan is now attempting to secure the benefit by declar- 
ing himself Mr. Roosevelt's natural successor? Ts 
there one who does not know that if Mr. Roosevelt had 
desired to perpetuate his power, he could have been 
ufMuinated by raising his finger, and that his advocacy 
of Mr. Taft's nomination was because it was necessary 
for him to secure the nomination of soiue one in order 
to prevent his own nomination ? Ts there one who does 
not believe in his heart of licarts that tlie selection of 
Mr. Taft bv Mr. Roosevelt as his candidate for the 



27. 



Presidency at the very moment when he himself was 
thrusting aside the Presidency, was with the honest 
purpose to secure the best possible administrator of the 
great policies that were dear to his heart? Is it to a 
dishonest purpose that Mr. Bryan claims to be the heir, 
and is it possible to ascribe a desire to perpetuate per- 
sonal power to the man who held the highest power in 
his grasp and rejected it? 

It is but a short time since these same voices of de- 
traction were charging the President with the purpose 
of usurping supreme and perpetual authority for him- 
self. Yet he has proved himself capable of a renuncia- 
tion of power exceptional in history, and has con- 
tributed to our system of government a precedent which 
forever sets a limit upon the continuance of the Presi- 
dential office. It is but a short time since these same 
voices were heard declaring that the President's 
character was so rashly belligerent that his Presidency 
would involve the country in certain war. Yet he has 
proved to be the greatest peacemaker of the generation. 

Mr. Bryan charges that the Republican party is 
responsible for the abuses of corporate wealth. As well 
might he charge that the man who plants cotton is 
responsible for the boll weevil, or that the man who 
plants fruit trees is responsible for the San Jose scale. 
Until the millenium has brought the eradication of 
human selfishness and greed, social abuses will come 
according to the shifting conditions of the times. Ad- 
versity and prosperity, wealth and poverty have each 
their own kinds of abuse. Constant vigilance and con- 
stant activity to meet and put an end to abuses as they 
arise is the task of government and of good citizenship; 
but the work is never finished. The Republican party 
has produced the conditions which have made our great 
prosperity possible, and it is dealing with the evils 



28. 



which have been incident to that prosperity with vigor 
and effectiveness. 

There are two substantial proposals made by the 
Democratic party as to the poHcy which they will follow 
if they are brought into power. 

One is that they will wipe out the protective tariff 
and substitute a tariff for revenue only. I shall not 
discuss that proposition, but it ought not to be for- 
gotten. The eleven years which have passed since the 
Dingley tariff was enacted have brought about many 
changes in the conditions to w^hich the tariff law is 
applied. Many of these changes have resulted from 
the very prosperity which the protection afforded by 
the tariff has produced. In the nature of things, such 
changes must occur and from time to time, every tariff 
must be revised and adapted to the new conditions. As 
the period of revision, however, is always one of uncer- 
tainty and a consequent injury to business, revisions 
ought not to be made too often, or upon slight grounds. 
The Republican party has not considered that sufficient 
grounds for thus disturbing business have existed here- 
tofore. It now considers that sufficient grounds do now 
exist and it has pledged itself immediately after the 
4th of March next to devote an extraordinary session 
of Congress to making such a revision in accordance 
with the true principles of protection. One of the ques- 
tions that must be determined by the coming election is 
whether we shall have such a revision, or whether we 
shall have the principle of protection abandoned and a 
new tariff enacted in accordance with the principles of 
free trade, and containing only such duties as are neces- 
sary to raise revenue for the support of the Government 
without any protective purpose. 

The last time the Democratic party was in power it 
attempted such a change of policy and the result was 



29- 

the Wilson- Gorman tariff of 1893. The very threat of 
such a proceeding at that time stopped business, closed 
the mills, threw millions of men out of employment and 
was accompanied by universal business depression and 
disaster. Are we ready to repeat that experience now. 
as we surely shall if we put the Democratic party in 
power ? 

The other proposition of the Democratic platform is 
to require all national banks to guarantee the payment 
of deposits by all other national banks. This is another 
patent financial nostrum, advertised to catch the fancy 
of the multitude ; and it should be suppressed under the 
pure food law until it is correctly labelled, "a measure 
to compel legitimate business to bear the risks of specu- 
lation." It might well be called a measure to destroy 
the national banking system, for who will wish to invest 
his money in a business where it is not merely subject to 
the risks assumed by the men whom he and his asso- 
ciates select to manage it. but is subject also to be called 
upon for the payment of an unlimited amount of debts 
of an indefinite number of persons over whom and 
whose obligations he and his associates have no control 
whatever ? 

A bank deposit is a very simple business transaction. 
The depositor in effect loans his money to the bank, 
which borrows it upon a promise to repay it on the 
lender's order, with or without a stipulated interest. 
Banks seldom fail to pay the debts thus contracted. 
Although the deposits are ordinarily many times the 
capital, losses are exceedingly small. The principal 
reason why this is so is that bankers are ordinarily 
men who have established a good reputation in the 
community for honesty and business sense. People 
ordinarily will not risk their money by lending it to men 
who have not these claims to confidence. Under the law 



30. 



any one who can furnish $25,000 can start a bank, but 
in practice, as a rule no one can start a bank who cannot 
also furnish a character which leads the community to 
trust him and deposit their money with him. If, how- 
ever, the sound and honest banks of the country guar- 
antee the debts of every bank, a well earned reputation 
for honesty and business judgment will no longer be 
necessary as a part of the banker's capital. It will no 
longer be necessary for the community to consider 
whether a banker is honest or not. Any scalawag can 
start a bank and obtain deposits on the credit of all the 
banks of the country. Any one who wishes to use 
funds in speculative enterprises can start a bank, invite 
deposits and thus borrow money on the credit of the 
entire banking capital of the United States. With such 
opportunities who can doubt that the standard of char- 
acter of the bankers of the country would deteriorate 
and the use of banking funds for speculative enter- 
prises would increase and that the losses which the 
honest bankers would be required to make good would 
increase correspondingly ? 

This burden would fall not merely upon the stock- 
holders of the banks, but upon the depositors also. 
Much banking capital would inexitably be driven out 
of the l)usiness and such as remained would have to 
make good its losses by reducing the rate of interest to 
its depositors and increasing the rate of interest upon 
loans. The profits of the banking business, like those 
of the merchant, the manufacturer and the farmer, 
depend upon good management. The attempt to make 
all the profits of good management 1)ear all the losses 
(tf barl management is a step in the socialistic process 
which would level all distinctions between thrift, enter- 
prise and sound judgment on the one hand, and reck- 
lessness, incapacity and failure on the other. 



31. 

Except for campaign purposes there is no occasion 
for any such scheme. The business men of the country 
need no guarantee of bank deposits. They know with 
whom they are deahng when they select a bank for 
deposits, and their intelhgence and knowledge of affairs 
are amply sufficient for their own protection in making 
the selection. The wage earners of the country, the 
multitude of people of small savings, not familiar with 
business, so far as they live in places where there are 
savings banks, have practically perfect safety for their 
deposits, and over eight and a half millions of them are 
enjoying that safety now with a good rate of interest. 
For them if they prefer it and for all those who live in 
places which are not accessible to savings banks, the 
Republican party proposes that the Government shall 
furnish absolute security through a postal savings bank, 
so that the wage earner can deposit his savings at the 
nearest post-office and have the guarantee of the Gov- 
ernment that it shall be returned; but that guarantee 
will be accompanied by the possession and control of 
the money itself, so that neither the depositor nor the 
Government can lose. This simple supplement to the 
banking and savings bank system meets everv require- 
ment, and. unlike the Democratic proposal, it has been 
proved safe and practicable by the experience of many 
countries and it violates no principle of sound finance 
or of common sense. 

^^llat evidence of Democratic fitness to be entrusted 
with power, is to be found in the record of its candidate 
for the Presidency? It is with profound satisfaction 
that we recognize the purity and uprightness of Mr. 
Bryan's character, and we cannot withhold our admira- 
tion from the skill and attractiveness of his oratory ; but 
when a candidate for high office can furnish no evidence 
of fitness derived from the actual performance of 



32. 



official duty, and relies entirely upon what he proposes 
to do in the future, we must test, so far as we can, the 
soundness of his judgment by the substance of his 
proposals, not by his manner of presenting them. It 
was skillful for Mr. Bryan to say that he is bound by 
the omissions of the Democratic platform as well as by 
what it contains ; but who dictated the omissions as 
well as the platform ? Can an omission of to-day wipe 
out public utterances of the past and remove them from 
memory as a basis for judgment upon the public man? 
The same eloquent voice which now with so much con- 
fidence is telling us how the Government ought to be 
conducted was heard in Mr. Bryan's candidacy of 1896 
urging upon the American people as the panacea for 
all evils and an absolute necessity for our prosperity, 
the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 
sixteen to one. Was he right then ? Was his judgment 
sound then? Would it have been wise for the people 
of the country to elect him President then in order to 
carry out the policy to which he was then devoted ? 

With the same confidence during his second candi- 
dacy he was heard to declare that the paramount issue 
before the American people was that of imperialism. 
Where is that issue now ? However tired some Amer- 
icans may be of the burden of the Philippines, what 
must be our estimate of the political wisdom and sense 
of proportion for which in the year 1900 the so-called 
question of imperialism filled the horizon and obscured 
the sky as the one paramount issue before the American 
]:)eople. 

On the 30th of August, 1906, Mr. Bryan announced 
upon his return from Europe, as the result of deliberate 
reflection, that Government ownership of railroads was 
the cure-all demanded bv the public interest. "T have 
reached the conclusion." he declared, "that there will 



33 



he no permanent relief on ihe railroad (jueslion from 
the discrimination hetween individnals and hetween 
places and from extortionate rates nntil the railroads 
are the proi)erty of the Government and are o])erated 
by the Government in the interest of the peojjle." That 
declaration he has re])eated many times in snl)stance. 

The Republican party l)elieves in the rei4uIation of 
railroads. It believes that their managers otight to be 
made and can be made to obe}- the law. It believes that 
l)y an enforcement of the law, not sj)asmodic and sensa- 
tional. l)ut stead}', hrm and persistent, excessive and 
discriminating rates can be stopped; and it is now and 
has been for a considerable period engaged in snch 
enforcement with marked efficiencv and success. It 
proposes for the Presidency a candidate who declares 
his ])nr])ose to continue and complete that enforcement 
of the law and whose competency to do so with success 
has been proxed. Mr. Bryan does not believe in the 
regulation of railroads. He does not believe it prac- 
ticable. He regards it as bound to fail, although he is 
willing to criticise the Re])ublican party for not accom- 
plishing that vast and com])licate(l task all at once. 

It is natural to observe that if the i)eople of the 
country desire railroads to be regulated, and the laws 
regarding them to be enforced, it would be wise to 
entrust that regulation to Mr. Taft, who believes in 
regulatit )n and has faith in the wisdom and effectiveness 
of the law, rather than in the hands of one who believes 
that all effort to regulate must prove futile. 

The chief importance of this subject, however, rests 
in the light it throws upon the candidate's qualification 
for the Presidential office. It is an essential charac- 
teristic of our system of government that it aims to 
afford individual opportunity for enterprise rather than 
to exercise paternal control. Americans have all felt 



34 

from the earliest times that undue extension of govern- 
mental power threatened liberty and tended to dull the 
initiative which has made us great as a nation. It has 
been only upon the most long continued consideration 
and with many doubts that we have yielded step by 
step to the enlargements of governmental regulation 
made necessary by the increasing complications of 
modern life and business. The apostle of the doctrine 
that the functions of government should be confined 
within the narrowest possible limits was Thomas 
Jefferson, whose disciple Mr. Bryan to-day prc^fesses 
to be. Under his inspiration the true Democratic party 
continually resisted the extension of governmental 
functions. It opposed the use of Government moneys 
for internal impro\ements. It (Apposed the building of 
ihe Paciiic railroads. It opposed the National Bank 
act. It denied the right of the National Government 
til im])(ise a ])rotective tariff. It has steadfastly main- 
t.iined tlie broadest construction of State rights and 
the narrowest construction of national rights. Yet Mr. 
Bryan, while inscribing the name of Tln^mas Jefferson 
upon his standard, seriously proposes that the Federal 
Government shall not merel}' regulate the operations 
of railroads which are engaged in interstate commerce, 
but shall ac(|uire and own and operate itself all the 
great railroads of the country. C^)nsider for a moment 
the situation which would exist in the State of New 
York with the Federal Government owning and Federal 
officers in Washington controlling with all the rights of 
ownershi]) the New York & New Haven, the New York 
Central, the West Shore, the Ontario & Western, The 
Delaware i\: Hudson, the Delaware, Lackawanna ^^ 
Western, the Frie, the Lehigh Valley, the I'altimore 
<K: Ohio and the Pennsyhania railroads. Consider the 
situation in Illinois with the Cio\ernment controlling all 



35 

the railroads that concentrate in Chicagx) : in Missouri 
the raih-oads that center in St. Louis. Add to that Mr. 
Bryan's proposal that no great interstate busi- 
ness shall be transacted — and all great business 
is interstate business — without the permission of 
the Federal Government e\'idenced by a license ; and 
y(m cannot fail to realize that he is prepared to see the 
State dwarfed into insignificance, and the farmer, the 
miner, the manufacturer, the merchant, all individual 
enterprise, not merely subject to restraint against 
wrong doing, but dependent upon the Government, and 
upon a centralized Government at Washington for their 
very existence. That is not reform : it is revolution. 
It is reversi(Mi to the ideas of paternal go\ernment from 
which America had happily escaped with her system of 
free individual opportunitx' and enterprise and to the 
ideas out of which South America has been 1)ra\ely 
strug-gling- for a generation. And this is to be done in 
the name of Thomas Jefiferson ! 

Now Mr. Bryan proposes that under supervision of 
the National Government everybody shall pro\'ide for 
the payment of everybody else's debts b\- his bank 
deposit guarant\- scheme. 

Is it prudent to place in his hands the great power of 
the Presidency: and above all is it wise to give to him 
rather than to Mr. T3.it. the experienced judge, the 
filling of the four \acancies in the Su])reme Court of 
the United States which may be expected during the 
next administration ? 

What is furnished by the record of the Democratic 
party at large to show that it is competent to maintain 
the prosperity we have, and execute the promises of 
reform it tenders. No proof whatexer of that is 
offered. All the evidence we have is the other wav. 
The majority of us have not yet forgotten the second 



36 



Administration of Gi\)v<^r Cleveland, winch ended (3nlv 
on the 4th of March. 1897. The Democracy then had 
its opportunity to show the world what it could do 
with government, for it possessed the Executive office, 
a majority of the Senate and a majority of the House. 
Its o])portunity to exercise that contnjl for the public 
benefit was wasted. Discord and confusion reigned 
throughout the entire four years. Incapacity to reach 
practical conclusions or to take any effective action was 
demonstrated. Xo promises were kept. Xo reforms 
were accomplished. It liccame apparent that the sole 
cohesixe force that bound the Democratic partv to- 
gether was the desire for ofifice, and once in of^ce. 
instead of progress, we had all factions pulling different 
ways, totally incapable of agreeing u])on a con.imon 
course of conduct. Hiere was but one sentiment in 
which a majorit}" of tlie Democratic majority could be 
united : that was in hatred of Mr. Cleveland, and theA- 
hated him for his \irtues. His sturdy integrity and 
high courage, his sincere convictions and ])atriotic 
purpose, his experience in government and strong 
practical sense afforded a leadership under which a 
])art}- capable of governn^ent could ha\e done great 
things for tlie country. i lie Democratic ])art\" repu- 
diated his leadership, and the very men who now con- 
trol that party follower '! him to his gra\e with 
depreciation and detraction. Under tliat discordant 
Democracy the countr\- drifted through years of com- 
mercial depression and disaster, poverty and distress 
without effecti\"e go\ernnitnt until the tn"st election of 
McKinle\- and a Repul)lican Congress ])lace(l the reins 
of power in tlie hands of a party competent to govern. 
Are tlie ])eoi)]c of the United States ready to repeat 
that ex])erience of l)em<icratic government? 






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